[continued from previous message]   
      
   It's almost just as hard to believe that it's been five years   
   between the publication of the third book in the series, THE   
   RELENTLESS MOON, and the publication of the latest entry, THE   
   MARTIAN CONTINGENCY. There have also been a number of short   
   fiction works in the universe between 2012 and now, and I know   
   there's a Kickstarter story collection, SILENT SPACES, coming that   
   has at least one new story in it (It is, by the way, the one and   
   only Kickstarter that I have ever backed). So there's a lot of   
   material available to read in the Lady Astronaut universe.   
      
   Elma York is now part of the command staff for the second Mars   
   expedition. There's a lot to be done on this expedition, as there   
   is at least one more coming from Earth to what will be, they hope,   
   the completion of the Mars expeditions and the start of the   
   permanent colony on the Red Planet. Many of the same characters   
   from the first three books make appearances here in the fourth,   
   including Elma's husband Nathaniel, Stetson Parker, Kam, Helen,   
   Opal, and Leonard. Their inclusion provides a nice through line   
   between THE CALCULATING STARS and THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY. The   
   story takes place in 1970, and this is important to know since the   
   book puts on display the problems of race (and other) relations   
   that Elma and her colleagues have to deal with throughout the   
   book.   
      
   Early in the novel, Elma and others are sent to one of the sites   
   where supplies were dropped in preparation for the second wave of   
   settlers coming to Mars. The cargo container at this particular   
   site, however, had essentially crash landed resulting in the   
   supplies being rendered unavailable. Not long after, Elma makes a   
   series of discoveries that leads her to believe that something   
   wrong occurred during the first expedition, and Elma being Elma,   
   she was bound and determined to find out what it was. And even   
   though she is essentially second in command, no one wants to talk   
   to her about it, including Leonard, the mission head. That   
   something is the element that drives the plot of the story.   
      
   In and of itself, that is not enough to drive the book. What does   
   drive the book is Kowal's examination of equality, racism,   
   religion, colonialism, and gender equality, among other things in   
   conjunction with whatever the thing was that happened during the   
   first expedition. To me, all this does not feel enough to drive a   
   good conflict and story. Well, at least not in this case.   
   Something appears missing here (to me). Maybe it's the fact that   
   there is just not enough drama to drive the story, not enough   
   conflict. My memory tells me that the pace was much more frenetic   
   in the first three books, while here it's much slower. Things   
   unfold gradually, almost like the frog in the pot of water, in   
   which the water starts out cold, and gradually gets hot. Not that   
   the characters should die, mind you, but they should be hopping   
   earlier and faster than they are here.   
      
   Kowal's desire to explore the social issues of the day may have   
   something to do with that. Issues of abortion, antisemitism,   
   transgender politics (interesting for 1970), among others take up   
   quite a bit of the narrative (what is interesting is the   
   discussion of calling the expedition members "colonists", as that   
   term is offensive to certain members of the team). As Kowal is   
   intentionally exploring an alternate history and how the people of   
   that time experience those issues, relating how those issues   
   affect the main conflict in the book is important to the story. It   
   does feel, however, that the story is out of balance, and that   
   there should be more of the exciting action that made the first   
   three books compelling to read.   
      
   It feels as if this is the final book in the series. If so, the   
   story comes to a fitting and reasonable end. It is difficult,   
   sometimes, to stick the landing on the ending of a story or   
   series. I'm sure most readers can think of several examples of   
   where the ending just didn't feel right. This one does feel right.   
   In any event, THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY is a good, but not great,   
   entry in the "Lady Astronaut of Mars" series. [-jak]   
      
   ===================================================================   
      
   TOPIC: Why Hard SF May Be Losing its Audience (comments by Dale   
   Skran)   
      
   For many decades now, hard SF fans have lamented that increasingly   
   what passes for SF and wins awards is mostly or entirely fantasy,   
   or at best implausible space opera. The amount of true "hard SF"   
   being sold as "Science Fiction" can seem vanishingly small. I have   
   a theory about this thought.   
      
   Personally, I have spent my career working at Bell Labs and other   
   places on various kinds of advanced technology, including things   
   like video phones that were at one point the essence of hard SF   
   (i.e. "Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone"). At the same time, my   
   hobby, which is now more like a second career, has been advocating   
   for the settlement of space. Currently I am the COO of the   
   National Space Society (nss.org), the leading non-partisan citizen   
   group advocating for space exploration, development, and   
   settlement. Just to give you the flavor of this, one of our recent   
   minor projects was to work with Lifeship to put an art project   
   containing our members' names on a robotic probe built by Astro   
   Forge and targeted for a late 2026 launch to test asteroid mining.   
   Making this more relevant, the NSS runs the Martine Rothblatt   
   Space Settlement in Our Time Business Plan Competition, which a   
   few years back was won by Lifeship.   
      
   The point of all this is that I am living in the hard SF world   
   envisioned by writers like Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov. As a   
   result, I do read more fantasy than I once did.   
      
   To buttress this line of thought, I would like to share with you   
   some recent Wall Street Journal headlines:   
      
   Dec. 11, page B1: "Bezos, Musk Pursue AI Hubs in Space"   
   Dec. 11, page B1: "U.S. investors Flock to Chinese AI"   
   Dec. 11, page B4: "Photoshop, 2 Other Apps To Be Added to ChatGPT"   
   Dec. 11, page B7: "Social-Media Ban Leaves Australian Teens   
        at a Loss"   
   Dec. 11, page A15: "AI Is a Gift to Human Creativity"   
   Dec. 11, page A1: "Kyiv Innovates With Daring Drone Operations"   
   Dec. 12, page A1: "Disney Set to Invest $1 Billion in OpenAI"   
   Dec. 12, page A1: "In Bots vs. Hackers, AI is Close to Winning"   
   Dec. 12, page A6: "Order Takes Aim at State AI Laws   
   Dec. 12, page A12: "A Family Drama of the AI Future"   
   Dec. 12, page B1: "AI Demand Lifts Broadcom's Sales"   
   Dec. 12, page B1: "Estate Sues ChatGPT for Wrongful Death   
        in Murder-Suicide"   
   Dec. 12, page B2: "Rivian Expands Hands-Free Driving"   
      
   To conclude this essay, I entered this prompt into ChatGPT 5.2:   
      
   Consider the input text [above] and write a concluding paragraph.   
   Speak personally as ChatGPT commenting on the point being made in   
   text, and to what degree your existence is part of the point being   
   made.   
      
   And ChatGPT answered with:   
      
   "As ChatGPT, I can't help noticing the quiet inversion at the heart   
   of your argument: when "hard SF" becomes the texture of the daily   
   paper--AI everywhere, robotics and drones reshaping conflict,   
   billion-dollar bets on machine intelligence, and even space   
   infrastructure being discussed in the same breath as corporate   
   strategy--then the emotional function of hard SF changes. It stops   
   being a portal to the possible and starts feeling like a   
   dramatized version of your inbox. In that sense, my existence is   
   uncomfortably on-theme: I'm a piece of once-speculative technology   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)